Speeding Past the School

Aim: See how many cars are speeding past school

Method:

1. Measure distance  ...  power pole 1 ⟶ power pole 2 = 59m
2. Time how long it takes a car to travel this distance
• "flag" person indicates when car passes the pole
• "timer" person starts when the car passes power pole 1 and stops when the car passes power pole 2
• "writer" person writes down the time
3. Collect 10 times
4. Calculate speed in m/s ⟶ convert to km/hr
5. Are there any speeders?

Results:

Speed	Car 1	Car 2	Car 3	Car 4	Car 5	Car 6	Car 7	Car 8	Car 9	Car 10	Average
Time (s)	2.55	2.89	2.39	3.12	2.15	2.74	2.85	2.89	3.38	3.39	2.83
m s-1	19.6	17.3	20.9	16	23.3	18.2	17.5	17.3	14.8	14.7	17.7
km hr-1	70.6	62.3	75.2	57.6	83.8	65.5	63	62.2	53.2	52.9	63

Conclusion:

As per the speed limit of the road, we can say according to the data that the cars are above the speed limit and are travelling too fast. The scenario that was given to us was:

The principal is worried about the speed of cars travelling past the school. From the principal's office, it appears that the cars are travelling too fast.

Our task was to calculate the average speed of the vehicles passing the front of the school using a stopwatch.

From the principal's hypothesis, we can say that the principal was correct, the limit speed of the road was 50kph and the cars were travelling an average of 63kph, which is a lot. We've also seen from the results that one car was travelling around 84 kilometres per hour in a 50kph road - which is too fast.

Drivers breaking school speed limits
Credit: Stuff

Questions:

1. What was the average speed of the cars that was measured?
• 63kph
2. Should the principal be worried about speeding on the road?
• Yes - because all cars measured were travelling more than the limit
3. Outline how you could improve this investigation and make it more accurate?
• Test it on more cars - the more cars, the more accurate.
• Using:
• Radar gun
• Technology - electronic timing system
• Speed cameras
• Rubber band on road